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[78bex]

My mum is in her late eighties & started to tell stories of her young life
Born in emsworth village in the mid twenties her mum was a local lass, but her dad was an ex-career soldier from up north the staffs area I`m thinking
I`m led to believe this because we have his hand written training notes from when he attended a farriers course at Aldershot in may 1914 (5694 L/cpl E. Handley) C. Company South Staffordshire regiment. Mum still has wallet containig an array of Medal ribbons, sadly no medals. He passed away in 1936 when my mum was just 10 years old. We don`t know his correct date of birth but my mum recalls he never mentioned WW1 but he spoke of his time in south africa. I applied for his service record card but it is no longer on file. about the only records that are kept is his service medal record card from WW1. We visited his grave in westbourne cementary & in 1936 he died at the age of 51. Mum wonders about his young life & his time the war. Looking at the medal ribbons they contain the campaign medals from WW1 including 1914 star with clasp & roses. the Queens south africa medal & the Kings south africa medal. Now if he was in the second boer war & received the Queens medal ( 11 October 1899 to 31 May 1902.) that makes his age 15 or 16? surely to young to serve in action. I`m just wondering if his date of birth is correct or was older than he was letting on? I`m at a loss now of where to look for more info.

[Jimbob]

Memory says young men used to lie about their ages to get into the forces...may help explain things.

Have you tried ancestry.com?

[78bex]

Memory says young men used to lie about their ages to get into the forces...may help explain things.

Have you tried ancestry.com?

My bro has an account with ancestory & drew a blank.
We need his birth cert. but don`t know his D.O.B. or place of birth

[CaptainZok]

Have you tried looking for a marriage cert, that should give you some more to go on.

[Darth Loo-knee]

I loved doing my own family tree...felt almost like Poiriot
There are far more sites which are free,  than Ancestory.. I found typing BMD gave quite a number of sites. ..

[78bex]

Have you tried looking for a marriage cert, that should give you some more to go on.

Here`s one out of the blue, Mum said she has the marrige cert only it`s the wrong one. The plot thickens, it turns out my grandmother was previously married to a serving sailor during WW1 (Leading stoker george miller) the little newspaper clipping with this marrige cert. states that the 2 sisters had a double wedding in Emsworth church in 1915. Sadly we also have George Millers death cert.  because  he was lost at sea 18 months later. That means we were wrongly searching for a marriage cert. on her maiden name & not her married name. What I thought would be a simple exercise in just looking up a few names now needs some careful research.

[CaptainZok]

Remember when searching to try different spellings of the name. That one had me foxed for quite a while I can tell you.

[ozzycat]

 i tried ancestry.com they proved to be very expensive  and not very good

[Lizzie_Zoom]

My mum is in her late eighties & started to tell stories of her young life
Born in emsworth village in the mid twenties her mum was a local lass, but her dad was an ex-career soldier from up north the staffs area I`m thinking
I`m led to believe this because we have his hand written training notes from when he attended a farriers course at Aldershot in may 1914 (5694 L/cpl E. Handley) C. Company South Staffordshire regiment. Mum still has wallet containig an array of Medal ribbons, sadly no medals. He passed away in 1936 when my mum was just 10 years old. We don`t know his correct date of birth but my mum recalls he never mentioned WW1 but he spoke of his time in south africa. I applied for his service record card but it is no longer on file. about the only records that are kept is his service medal record card from WW1. We visited his grave in westbourne cementary & in 1936 he died at the age of 51. Mum wonders about his young life & his time the war. Looking at the medal ribbons they contain the campaign medals from WW1 including 1914 star with clasp & roses. the Queens south africa medal & the Kings south africa medal. Now if he was in the second boer war & received the Queens medal ( 11 October 1899 to 31 May 1902.) that makes his age 15 or 16? surely to young to serve in action. I`m just wondering if his date of birth is correct or was older than he was letting on? I`m at a loss now of where to look for more info.

There were indeed many young "men" who signed on before they were technically old enough to do so in Victorian England. As with the navy, the conditions and the promise of three good meals a day, plus a uniform, attracted many a poor lad. This was particular true again with the First World War, but often for the reason it was seen as being glamorous, and the right thing to do, to serve God, King and Country against the wicked Hun. Of course there were also those that did not want to be given a white feather as a coward, so wanted to prove their manhood before they were really men.  Many 14 year old's joined up for WW1.